Pleven's Saglasie is a community cultural institute of the old Bulgarian kind — a chitalishte, part library, part school of arts, part concert promoter — and among the oldest in the town. Its ballet formation trains dancers from childhood upwards and supplies them to the city's larger productions, where a chorus and orchestra alone will not do; staged performances of Orff's Carmina Burana in Pleven have drawn on the company.